Archdiocese seeks aid for special ed

From the Intelligencer.

Archdiocese seeks aid for special ed

By DOM COSENTINO, The Intelligencer

Funding for special education programs are a problem for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, an administrator of the archdiocese said Wednesday at a state House Republican committee hearing in Upper Moreland.

Ellen Wedermeyer, the archdiocese's assistant superintendent for special education, said the archdiocese's tuition rate only covers 20 percent of what it actually costs to educate a special needs child at any one of its five schools of special education and eight additional programs for students with learning disabilities.

Wedermeyer also said enrollment in the archdiocese's learning disability program at the elementary level has increased 20 percent in the last year, with several locations full and a wait list for the upcoming school year.

“If we are unable to locate a new funding stream to aid in paying our operating expenses,” she said, “the futures of the five schools of special education are in jeopardy.”

Wedermeyer and others addressed the House Republican Policy Committee at a hearing co-chaired by state Rep. Thomas P. Murt, an Eastern Montgomery County Republican, at St. David Parish, which is home to Our Lady of Confidence Day School, an archdiocesean school that serves students with developmental or intellectual disabilities.

The state has already established an Educational Improvement Tax Credit, which effectively allows businesses to pay part of their state business taxes through state-certified, nonprofit scholarship organizations such as the archdiocese's Business Leadership Organized for Catholic Schools.

BLOCS can benefit special education students, but there is no special tax credit program specifically set aside for those students, according to testimony offered by Andrew T. Lefebvre, the executive director of the school-choice coalition REACH.

Murt, an Archbishop Wood graduate, said it was too soon to tell how the testimony would be utilized as part of any legislation. The General Assembly is on recess until Sept. 15, and a pair of bills — one in the House and one in the Senate — that would address special education services for non-public schools have been pending since last summer.

“We could decide,” Murt said, “if we want to use (Wednesday's testimony) to support the legislation that's pending now, or if other changes need to be made.”